One of the biggest steps on my pinball journey was an older player explaining to me that most machines (the ones that weren't super-ancient, anyway) had one or

One of the biggest steps on my pinball journey was an older player explaining to me that most machines (the ones that weren't super-ancient, anyway) had one or more "stories" or progressions of play, and that playing well required understanding those. From there, you kinda learn to "read" a table before you try it, between LED screen directions and printed directions under the glass and looking over the table layout & elements. Gives you a big advantage. I'd poked at pinball machines every chance I got (which wasn't that many) as a kid, but that part had somehow never clicked. Another surprise was that about 50% of playing well is in the hips, not the fingers.